BAGUIO CITY – Descendants of an Ibaloi clan leader who stood up against the American colonial government after he was dispossessed of his land have asked the government to give him justice by naming the 570-hectare Camp John Hay after him.

The heirs of Mateo Cariño said the site of Camp John Hay was part of Cariño’s landholding that was seized by the Americans in the early 1900s when Baguio was being established.

They aired their call as the city celebrated its 99th founding anniversary Monday.

Joanna Cariño, one of the heirs and spokesperson of the Mateo Cariño and Bayosa Ortega Foundation, said replacing John Hay’s name was one of the ways to recognize Cariño’s efforts in defending his right to the land grabbed by the Americans.

“By naming the land after Mateo Cariño and building his monument on that land, the government, in a way, would have symbolically redressed the injustices done to him and to the rest of the Ibaloi who were victims of land grabbing,” Joanna told the Inquirer.

She challenged city officials to support her family’s case to reclaim the former American military rest and recreation facility named after former US Secretary of State John Milton Hay.

The area is now a tourism and commercial complex run by the private firm Camp John Hay Development Corp.

Joanna presented the paper, “The Mateo Cariño and Bayosa Ortega Story: A case study of the dispossession of the native Ibaloi in Baguio City,” during the Baguio Land Conference at the University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio on Friday.

“As Baguio City prepares to celebrate its centennial as a chartered city [in 2009], it would do good for the local government to have a sense of history and to be reminded that the city was developed at the expense of large-scale land grabbing of Ibaloi lands,” Joanna said.

The paper said the land over which Camp John Hay was built “was Ypit and Lubas, the pasture lands of Mateo Cariño and his ancestors before him.”

“In fact, [Mateo Cariño] had already applied for said lands, over which he was issued Possessory Information in 1901, equivalent to a title under the Spanish Royal Decree. When he, however, tried to register the land, he came up against the full force of the American colonial government,” Joanna said.

She said the land on which the Baguio City Hall, Baguio Central School, Rizal Park, Burnham Park, Melvin Jones football grounds and Athletic Bowl stand and the areas within a kilometer radius from the Kilometer Zero marker in downtown Baguio also belonged to the families of Mateo Cariño and Bayosa Ortega. These were also seized by the American colonial government, she said.

Prof. Raymundo Rovillos, dean of the College of Social Sciences of UP Baguio, said ancestral land claimants who were displaced by the American colonial government would have valid claims to the property if it was proven that historical injustice was committed.

“If there is historical injustice, then it should be corrected. There should be restitution of the clans who were dispossessed because of these injustices,” Rovillos said.

“But the restitution may not necessarily mean that you give back the land entirely because there were already changes between the past and the present. There may be other forms of attaining social justice,” he said.

“The government may not concede to [the claims] anymore, but we are not saying that principles should be compromised. There should be a striking balance that would benefit both the present stakeholders and the ancestral land claimants.”

Joanna Cariño said what the family was trying to reclaim were the unoccupied parcels. “Instead of giving it to multinational corporations, it should be returned to the original occupants,” she said.

The conference participants said the government should recognize the Ibaloi as the indigenous peoples of Baguio who have rights and valid claims over ancestral lands.

They also urged the government to accept the injustices committed against the indigenous peoples and to identify appropriate mechanisms for reparation.

Joanna Cariño said that before the American colonial government developed Baguio into a chartered city and the country’s summer capital, it was a home to a number of Ibaloi clans whose traditional livelihoods were horse and cattle grazing, agriculture and gold trading.

Among them were the Cariño, Suello, Carantes and Molintas clans and their extended family systems, she said.

“Land was plentiful, there were areas of open access, but it was also clear which areas had been developed by the original clans and which were traditionally recognized as owned by them,” she said.

She said the lands Kafagway, Ypit, Lubas and Chuyo “were recognized by other Ibaloi clans as having been developed and owned by Mateo and Bayosa’s lineages since time immemorial.”

The American colonial government, through an executive order in 1903, reserved these areas for military purposes.

“Mateo Cariño was not only dispossessed of his own land but was even legislated out of his own house,” said Joanna.

Mateo Cariño fought back to defend his ownership of the land by filing a case against the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.

According to Joanna Cariño’s paper, in February 1909, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the property “grabbed and unceremoniously squatted upon by the American military for the purpose of establishing its camp was not public land; that it was in fact private property by native title; and it belonged to Mateo Cariño.”

Part of the decision said: “Our first object in the internal administration of the [Philippine] islands is to do justice to the natives, not to exploit their country for private gain.”

“Mateo Cariño did not live to claim his victory, having died on June 4, 1908, before the final decision of the US Supreme Court. Notwithstanding, he left behind a legacy of the decision of the native title which has now become part of the laws of the land and even of international law,” Joanna said.